'This is weird': Vancouver's black artists enjoy unique visibility every February
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2020 04:51:04 +0000
Tonye Aganaba is tired.
The Vancouver singer-songwriter is suddenly in high demand because it’s Black History Month — a rare occasion of visibility and engagement for many in Vancouver’s black community, especially those in the arts scene. Aganaba is booked up with events for the next 28 days.
“This month is great,” they said Saturday, laughing wearily. “I get paid to be black.”
The child of a Nigerian father and a Zimbabwean mother, Aganaba is one of Vancouver’s most well-known and visible independent, black musicians, and their star is on the rise. CBC Music named Aganaba’s “Sugar,” from 2019 release Something Comfortable, one of the most underrated songs of the year, describing the non-binary artist as “one of this country’s most often overlooked R&B/soul talents” in the process.
But Aganaba is never overlooked come February when the calls to perform or attend local art events suddenly start pouring in. Tokenizing is how this may feel at times, and the soul singer is hardly alone in the experience. In Vancouver, where there remains a “need and desire to establish a sense of black community,” according to 2018 Vancouver Book Award winner Chelene Knight, that’s part of what makes Black History Month so special.
“I get to be surrounded by black people for one month, and we all get to huddle together and be like, ‘this is weird,’ said Aganaba. “(…) I think it encourages us to continue making our own space, because space is not going to be made for us.”
That’s the focus of Root; an Afrocentric interactive art exhibition at East Vancouver’s Commercial Street Cafe organized by Aganaba and fellow multidisciplinary artist Naomi Grace. Exhibiting throughout the month of February, Root celebrates black identity through creative expression, using art to heal and document history.
Root also serves as an opportunity to bring Vancouver’s black community together. Grace and Aganaba, allies and members of Vancouver’s black community will gather in the cafe on Feb. 7 to formally launch the exhibition at a sold-out, interactive event that explores questions such as: How is blackness defined and honoured, and how can we use art to reach people who don’t think like we do?
“The focus is to try to get people talking about visibility in the community,” said Grace, who notes that there is a history and legacy of black folks in British Columbia, contrary to an opinion she hears regularly.
“I was born here,” she said. “I have often heard people say there are no black people in Vancouver, but that’s absolutely not true.”
This was echoed Saturday by Premier John Horgan, who called black history “foundational” to British Columbia’s history in his statement to kick off the month, and praised the contributions of judge Mifflin Wistar Gibbs and former B.C. MLA Rosemary Brown, the first Black Canadian woman to be elected to a Canadian provincial legislature.
Today we begin Black History Month, a time to honour and celebrate the stories, experiences and accomplishments of Black Canadians here in British Columbia and across the country.
Read my full statement on #BlackHistoryMonth ⬇️https://t.co/jAB4LARz9o
“This month,” Horgan said, “I encourage everyone in British Columbia to…learn about the significant efforts made by Black British Columbians to better our province.”
Aganaba says they are grateful to be so in demand every February, and so exhausted by the end of the month. But when March arrives and things go back to normal, it can feel disappointing.
“There’s a sense of sadness that I feel because I feel so spent,” they said. “And I feel like I’m chill enough and cool enough and hip enough to be spent every month — not just February.”
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